Sunday, 24 February 2013

Celebrant: Fr John McLaughlin (I think, judging from a fuzzy
photo on the website)

I always enjoyed Latin at school, and I’d never heard a
Latin mass so I thought it would be interesting to attend the Tridentine Latin
Mass still celebrated by the Society of St Pius X in defiance of the
liturgical revisions sanctioned by the Second Vatican Council.

Unfortunately, despite listening attentively throughout
today’s service, I still haven’t heard a Latin mass, because it was practically
inaudible. I’m not blaming the fidgeting children; they were a minor
distraction. But the priest rattled his way through the service in a kind of
mumbled whisper and with his back to the congregation, so that even though
booklets with parallel Latin and English translations were provided it was
impossible to find the place because I was straining to hear even a single word
I recognised.

When he turned round to face us and deliver his sermon in
English, he actually had a nice, clear speaking voice that was perfectly easy
to hear, but why he couldn’t have raised the volume even a little during the
Latin bits I don’t know.

Hishomily was
based on a gospel passage, Matthew 17:19, in which James, John and Peter
witness a vision of Jesus talking to Moses and Elias. Saints who see visions –
like Peter and like the children at Fatima, St Bernadette, St Philip Neri et al
– are so enraptured by these divine apparitions that they lose all sense of
time, of hunger, of pain, of earthly things in general. God’s infinite wisdom,
justice and perfection are more than the brains of created beings such as
ourselves can understand, so any vision granted to us is but a tiny piece of
what we’re aiming for – the fullness of God for all eternity.

And then he turned back to the altar to tinker with various
objects (chalice, purificator, paten, pall, veil, burse, corporal, ciborium,
all helpfully explained in the booklet), while the server knelt behind him and
acted as bridesmaid, holding up the hem of his chasuble every time he
genuflected, which was often. Of course, none of this could be seen very
clearly and next to nothing could be heard as he muttered his way through his
lines at breakneck speed.

And then he stopped muttering. The most solemn moment of the
mass had arrived. This was, according to the booklet, not just a re-enactment
of the divine sacrifice but Christ actually offering himself again in our
presence, described thus:

“The angels gather round in awe and reverence; the priest
prays the canon in silence, and all should be quiet and still, for the great
moment is fast approaching when our Lord Jesus Christ will come down upon the
Altar.”

Communion was offered to the congregants, there were closing
prayers including Hail Mary, which was the only part of the service during
which anyone else besides the priest and the server spoke, and then there was a
nasty little anti-Semitic hymn, O come
and mourn with me awhile, led by one confident female voice joined by a few
feeble followers, but the sound hardly did justice to the lungpower of 40-50
people.

I joined in with some hesitation, wondering as at previous
churches about the unplayed or unplayable organ whose pipes have become no more
than decoration, and when I looked up at the end of the hymn, the priest had
disappeared and the whole thing was over. It had taken less than 50 minutes.

Why conduct worship in a language the worshippers don’t
understand? Three possible reasons spring immediately to mind: a) because the
language itself is considered holy and God wishes us to use it when we
speak to him; b) because that’s what our ancestors did and we want to maintain
continuity with that tradition; and c) because the poetry of the language aids
meditation and opens our minds and hearts to experience the divine. There may
be others too, of course.

But what on earth is the point of turning up to watch the
back of an ornately dressed man muttering at an altar without even being able
to hear the cadences of his speech, let alone the words? This is a liturgy
that’s stood the test of time, and if SSPX members love it so much that they’d
risk excommunication for their adherence to it then I hope they can conclude
that it’s worth it, but what sits oddly with their stance is the
impression given – to this outsider, at least – that the actual content of the
liturgy isn't really all that important. Perhaps it is enough for the laity
simply to be in the presence of the priest as he performs the sacred ritual,
and to be invited to participate in the tail end of it, but if this is what all
Catholic churches were like before Vatican II then I can see why change was deemed necessary.

It’s a mystery all right, and probably one that my human
brain will never comprehend. I had expected ceremony and solemnity, and there
was some of that. I had expected Latin, and there was some of that too, though
listening to it was the auditory equivalent of watching a shadow play in a dark
room while wearing sunglasses.

Did Christ descend upon the Altar? Not that I noticed, but
since the whole business was a private transaction between the priest and an
unseen other, or others, it could well be that the gathering of angels and the
re-sacrificed saviour were indeed present, imperceptible to worldly sinners but
visible to the saints and mystics we’re enjoined to hold in reverence.

Monday, 18 February 2013

Christians are hypocrites. That’s straight from the horse’s
mouth, or rather straight from the mouth of Andy Prime, who offered this
apology at the conclusion of his sermon. But horses were very much the meat of
the matter too, because just like the rest of the nation Andy couldn’t resist a
few equine jokes to illustrate his main (mane? … sorry, I’m letting this horse
thing gallop away with me) point.

There are too many so-called Christians out there, he said,
who are like beefburgers with no beef in them, like the salt that’s lost its
saltiness or the light under a bushel (or in the NIV, under a bowl, which is
somehow less poetic). The theme was “Salt and Light” (Matt 5:13-16), and the
argument was cogently made. Jesus was preaching to uncover a scandal and expose
hypocrisy, and to explain in these four verses the purpose of discipleship: 1)
for the praise of your Father in Heaven; 2) for the sake of a dark, decaying
world; and 3) for the sake of those who hate you and will persecute you.

That last one roused an echo of last week’s sermon at the FP Church in Inverness, but the tone couldn’t have been more different. Rather than leave us with the
grim inevitability of being despised by a world that hates Christ, Mr Prime
suggested that persecution may be the means by which God calls us to shine for
him, though our instinct is to hide our light.

The place was packed. I’d say 200 downstairs and however
many fit in the gallery upstairs, which I couldn’t see fully from where I was
sitting, but latecomers were being shoehorned in wherever there was the odd
space. It’s the fullest church I’ve been in for a long time, and I’m glad I
went when I did, because Charlotte Chapel is being sold this year and the
congregation is moving to St George’s West Church. How many churches in this
day and age are outgrowing their premises? Not many, I’d wager.

That many people singing together is pretty powerful, and
the hymns were a mixture of old and new, starting with an old chestnut, “You
servants of God, your master proclaim”. “You servants”, note, not “Ye
servants”, although they couldn’t do much to modernise “God ruleth on high” so
they just left that as it was. Then there was “Light of the world who stepped
down into darkness”, which I’d never heard before, and two more with new words
to old familiar tunes, one of which, the Londonderry Air, was a particularly
brave choice for congregational singing given its wide range, but it seemed to
work out okay.

There was an electric piano and an organ, both played at
once, but I couldn’t work out if the organ was connected to the surrounding
pipework or was a standalone electronic thing. I suspected the latter and found
myself wondering about unplayed organs in churches that have opted for
alternative accompaniment. Is it just fashion, or could there be a shortage of
organists, or organ tuners? I feel a little spin-off investigation coming on.

So that was Charlotte Chapel – busier than I’d expected,
gently buzzing, confident in its vision (illustrated with a diagram on its website for the avoidance of doubt) and in keeping with its motto,
“Conspicuous for Christ”. Obviously an attractive place to worship, but not the
place for me. The fault is mine, of course. I just can’t get back on board with all
the Jesus stuff. The whole point of my mission is to put that to the test,
though, and you never know, one of these days …

Friday, 15 February 2013

This time last year, when I was writing (fiction) about a
cult-like church obsessed with eschatology, I watched an awful lot of religious
TV by way of research, and very enlightening it was too, but not in the way the
broadcasters intended. People who don’t venture beyond the documentary zone of
the electronic programme guide (EPG) or who are not fans of the word-of-faith
movement or believers in creationism will probably never have seen the
programmes I’m talking about, but if you thought that all religious
broadcasting amounted to was Songs of Praise, Alleluia, or some well-rehearsed hymns introduced by a cosy celebrity like Thora
Hird (anyone remember Praise Be!? …
I’m showing my age), then you need to think again. There are more things in heaven
and earth, Horatio …

First there’s EWTN, a long-established channel which belongs in a category all of its own,
broadcasting Catholic programmes old and new, and not involving itself at all
in the fun and games the other channels are having on the evangelical
merry-go-round of shared content and blurred brand identity, of which more
below. Mostly it seems to feature an elderly nun telling the rosary, or earnest
discussions between clean-cut young priests in a library.

Then there are the channels showcasing a variety of African
churches, hysterical sermons, chaotic healing sessions and intemperate debates.
The programmes tend to have pretty poor production values, but they must have
their followers, even if they aren’t as slick or well funded as some of the
“white” religious channels which occupy the more prominent spots in this part
of the EPG.

And it is to this third category that I now turn, because
when I first got Sky TV I could barely believe my eyes and ears. Is this kind
of thing really allowed on UK television? Can’t people see that they’re
charlatans one and all? There isn’t a snake oil salesman alive who couldn’t
learn a thing or two from the folk who appear on some of these channels. Just
start at 580 on the EPG and keep clicking the arrow-up button, and you’ll find
undreamt-of worlds of greed and hypocrisy masquerading as faith, and all manner
of low-life conmen grasping for your money.

By far the vilest and most obviously criminal of these is
Peter Popoff,
long since exposed on primetime US television as a fraudster by Johnny Carson
and arch-sceptic James Randi, but still disgracing our screens on this side of
the pond. Ofcom have claimed they can do nothing to prevent his infomercials from being
broadcast in this country because the channels that carry them are not
operating under UK broadcast licences, but maybe the Advertising Standards Authority will get round to
dealing with him one of these days. In the meantime, he remains free to hawk
his magical manna bread and miracle spring water to the gullible and desperate.

May God strike Popoff down! Oh yes, Lord, and while you’re
in smiting mood, spare a thought for Don Stewart and his green prosperity handkerchiefs.
Haven’t seen him on telly for a while now, but no doubt he’s still out there
scamming away as before.

But my personal favourites are Larry and Tiz Huch, whose ministry seems to revolve around promoting a tawdry range of pseudo-Judaica
(pseudaica?) which will deepen faith and enhance prayer … somehow or other. Larry does all
the talking and Tiz gazes adoringly at him, nods a lot and echoes what he says
with a lot of little Tourette-ish amens. Occasionally she’s allowed to say a
few words about the effectiveness of the latest powerful “prayer tool”. You can
see she’s champing at the bit, but Larry doesn’t surrender airtime willingly.
Poor Tiz! She might actually have something interesting to say for herself, but
sadly we’ll never know.

You don’t have to watch religious TV for very long to notice
that there’s a small but constantly rotating cast of characters all guesting on
one another’s shows. So for instance, Jonathan Bernis of Jewish Voice Ministries (my thoughts on the Messianics could
fill several blog posts and then some, so I’ll leave that for another day) will
invite Larry Huch onto his programme, but before you know it Bernis himself
will be a guest of Sid Roth’s, and Sid will pop up on yet another show or
channel. An awful lot of this content is years old and frequently repeated, but
the messages seldom change.

The personalities divide basically into five categories with
some overlap:

b) evangelists to the Jews: Mike Evans, the unctuous Mr Bernis, the
shouty and excitable “Rabbi” Schneider, and a rather sweet couple called Barry
and Batya Segal, who actually seem really nice and I wonder if I ought to lump
them together with the others;

c) creationists, of which the grand-daddy of them all is
“Dr” Grady McMurtry, whose most-used phrase, without a trace of irony, is “the
fact of the matter is”;

d) stadium preachers: Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Hinn again
and others who aspire to inherit the mantle of Billy Graham; and

e) studio sofa preachers, chat hosts and fundraisers, chief among
whom are Rory and Wendy Alec of God TV and their slightly more homespun British cousins Howard and Lesley Conder of
Revelation TV.

Other bloggers, most notably Gordon Hudson, have compiled comprehensive dossiers on the theological bent and business dealings of Revelation TV, so it’s worth
checking out Gordon’s blog on this and other matters. And a warning to anyone
who thinks of further googling on the subject of our friend McMurtry: you will
become incredulous and irate and waste a lot of your precious time and he’ll be
no less smug or illogical at the end of it.

Both Revelation TV and God TV used to broadcast from the UK
but left to set up elsewhere to evade the strictures of their Ofcom licences.
The lower-budget Revelation TV headed for Spain, but mega-rich God TV went all
the way to Jerusalem, where they have installed themselves in a
state-of-the-art studio complex in anticipation of the second coming.

But until that longed-for moment arrives, viewers of God TV
will watch a lot of appeals for money, a lot of advertisements for Wendy’s
books, a fair few sweaty concerts starring “prophet” Kim Clement, and a lot of
interviews with bizarre people you really wouldn’t want to associate with
unless you were … well, unless you were Rory and Wendy Alec.

Christianity is all about a resurrection, and it seems that
any televangelist’s career can be resurrected no matter how thoroughly dead they
might once have appeared. Peter Popoff popped up again, didn’t he? And he’s not
the only one. Rory and Wendy have recently welcomed back to their sofa Todd
Bentley, star of the controversial Lakeland
revival, a phenomenon in which people apparently received healing in a fall-to-the-floor-shaking
kind of way reminiscent of the Toronto blessing.

Yes, we’ve seen it before and it will no doubt come round
again, but there were allegations of financial impropriety and Bentley stepped
down and it’s all well documented elsewhere so I’ll say no more than that
Bentley is back, as of Thursday 14February 2013, a grotesque parody
of penitence begging for cash for God TV’s vital work in hastening the day of
rapture. If you think the Messiah’s a long time coming, you could always help
them out; the first thing you’ll see when you visit their website is a “donate” box.

Christians of every stripe should be concerned about these channels, about their shaky theology, their potential to influence credulous viewers and the warped image of Christianity they project. Jews should be concerned about the thinly cloaked missionary efforts and the Messianics' have-your-cake-and-eat-it approach to the tenets of two obviously incompatible faith positions. Scientists, politicians, educators -- in fact, all of us -- should should be deeply concerned by the diets that claim to cure cancer, the "evidence" for a young earth and the promotion of other crazy theories in the name of God.

Revisiting all this tripe has well and truly sickened me, so where does this leave my own little Soul Search mission? Uncomfortable, quite frankly. Angry at times. Suspicious of evangelists,
most certainly. In fact, apart from Barry and Batya, who come across as
engaging and genuine and who actually make some quite interesting programmes,
there’s not a single religious broadcaster I could bear to be in the same room
with. It doesn’t bode well, but these virtual churches are so unlike any
real-world church I’ve ever been to that I think I can still live in hope. And so the mission continues.

Monday, 11 February 2013

What does “welcome” mean? I find myself reflecting on the
disconnect between signs on the outside of the building saying “All Welcome”
and “Visitors Welcome”, and fifty people inside the building who uttered not a
word of welcome to this visitor, far from her Edinburgh home for the weekend
but determined to continue the mission. Admittedly, there were two men
in the vestibule who shook my hand, but I suspected they probably wouldn’t have
done so unless I’d stuck my hand out first (was I breaching some kind of FP
protocol by being so forward?), but I don’t recall the word “welcome” being
used then or at any other point in the next hour and thirty-five minutes – yes,
really! – and in exchange for my “good morning” to the woman who sat in the
same pew as me all I got was a grimace in return.

The FPs have a fearsome reputation for being grim, joyless
and uncompromising. Deserved or not? I wasn’t sure, but I approached this
service with an open mind and a fair idea of what to expect – no instrumental
accompaniment, sit down to sing but stand up to pray, and a leg-cramp-inducingly
long sermon to sit through. It couldn’t be so very far removed from the many
hundreds of other Presbyterian services I’ve attended in my lifetime. Could it?

Now, I do like a metrical psalm, I must admit. I’ve never
been one for trendy worship music, and what was good enough for King David is
good enough for me. There’s also an admirably robust logic behind the exclusive
psalmody practised by the Free Presbyterians and other churches that have
evolved down the same branch of the ecclesiastical tree that seems
apt and in keeping with their view of scripture. How many times must I have
sung my way around the psalter, and to how many tunes? Enough, I thought, to
find no surprises here, so I was somewhat taken aback to encounter three tunes
I’d never heard before. They were pitched a wee bit too high and the overall
choral tone was less than harmonious, but everyone sang, which is more than can
be said for some congregations I’ve been part of. The psalms, incidentally,
were Psalm 24:1-6, Psalm 8 in its entirety, and Psalm 132:11-14.

But the main event, of course, was the sermon. Mr Hutton
affects a “pulpit voice”, with a sing-song cadence and phrases of almost
exactly equal length, lending everything he says a hypnotic quality. That might
have been one of the reasons why several people nodded off, and I actually
heard snoring at one point, but they might just have been exhausted by the
sheer length of the sermon. I’m estimating at least 50 minutes – the other 45
being taken up with the three psalms, one bible reading (1 John 3, whole chapter)
and one very long prayer – but it might actually have been longer. I wasn’t
wearing a watch, and it didn’t seem appropriate to fish around in my handbag to
check the display on my mobile phone.

The theme of his sermon, taking 1 John 3:1-3 as the text,
was the nature of “sonship” and the privilege of being sons of God and
therefore being like Christ, who is not ashamed to call us his brethren.
Everyone sitting in that church, said Hutton, was either a child of God or a
child of the devil. There is no in between, and that should be a matter of
concern to us. Unless you are born again, you are a child of the devil, but a
sinful world rejected Christ when he came unto his own and continues to reject
those who receive and believe in him. This will always be the case, and
Christians can expect to be despised by the world. Cheerful stuff!

The three text verses were frequently intoned throughout the
sermon, which gave the appearance of being a deep and detailed theological
argument but actually contained so much repetition that the salient points
could probably have been delivered in around fifteen minutes if he’d been more
concise about it – or indeed in a little over 100 words, as above. Nevertheless,
I got the impression that the capacity a) to deliver and b) to endure a long
sermon might be considered a virtue for preacher and congregants respectively.

I took a lot of notes, but no one else moved a muscle,
except to slump involuntarily into slumber, and I found myself waiting for something
conclusive, convincing, persuasive … whatever is supposed to seal the deal and
send you home thinking about what you’ve heard and what it means for your life
and your relationship with the Almighty. But that moment never came. Maybe I
should have surrendered to the general tone of droning portentousness and
allowed all that muted indignation to wash over me like whale song, because by
analysing what was actually said I realised I’d pricked the balloon … and after
he’d spent so long filling it with hot air too.

And then suddenly, in the final thirty seconds of his sermon,
Hutton changed tack and issued a bizarre non-sequitur of a coda, as follows:
“How sad it is that someone brought up in a Free Presbyterian manse should support
the position of the present government, which would legislate to permit a gross
immorality that is an abomination to God the creator.” That’s verbatim, by the
way.

Clearly this was a reference to the legalisation
of gay marriage, but who was the individual in question? I haven’t followed
enough of the debate to know which son or daughter of the manse has been thus
estranged from the church whose unforgiving code of ethics he/she had no doubt
been expected to adopt, and cursory Googling has found no more than an FP
petition to the Scottish Government on the subject with no names named. The
congregation, one presumes, knew exactly who he was talking about.

And then it was all over. A final short prayer, a few
notices about service times, the communion in Dingwall and a forthcoming sermon
on “the history and destiny of the Jews according to scripture” (I’d like to
have heard that, actually), and everyone left the church. They couldn’t have
vacated the place faster if there had been a fire drill, and hardly anyone
spoke … not to one another, and certainly not to me. No handshakes on the way
out, no valediction, no eye contact, no acknowledgement of my presence. That’s
their prerogative, of course. It’s their church and their faith and I don’t
claim to be worth noticing, but I wonder if they ought to amend their signage
so that it reads “Visitors Admitted” or something of that ilk, something that
promises less than “Visitors Welcome”.

“Visitors not actually turned away” might do the trick. It
occurred to me I could have turned up hatless and betrousered just to see what
they’d have done. I wouldn’t, of course. I’m not setting out to shock or insult
anyone, or to draw attention to myself, but I left with what are no doubt
diabolically inspired feelings of cheerlessness and disappointment.

Chilled by the cold wind as much as by the FP experience, I
headed along the road to Costa Coffee. The young man behind the counter smiled
at me and I could have hugged him; I was among human beings once again. It was
a simple transaction. All he was selling me was a latte, but he did it with
good grace. The message the FPs are selling – that Christ has bought sinners
their salvation through his death and resurrection – is infinitely more
significant, though the sales technique is unlikely to win many loyal
customers. But that seems to be just how they like it.

Monday, 4 February 2013

Silence is a difficult thing to achieve in our noisy world,
and in a room full of people all trying to be silent the smallest of movements
can seem incredibly irritating. Thus the throat-clearing, nose-blowing,
jacket-folding, wriggling-in-one’s-seat kind of noises became amplified and
impossible to tune out.

I’d done my homework, so I knew that the Quakers sit in silence until someone feels moved by the spirit to speak, and I was wondering how easy it would be to sit still for a whole hour. As it
turned out, it was easier for me than for some of the other 80 people in the
room, especially the children, one of whom remained completely unchecked by his
parent(s), allowing the drumming of impatient feet to drown out any possibility
of meditation. After ten minutes of incessant shoe percussion I was beginning
to think I'd not be able to stand it much longer, but thankfully that was the
moment when the kids were taken to another room, leaving the adults to our more
muted and occasional shufflings.

It was twenty-five past the hour before anyone spoke, a
brief observation about something she’d read in the Bhagavad Gita. At 11.33
someone spoke for about two minutes about adversity and life’s apparent
unfairness, and about fifteen minutes after that a third person talked about
liking other people and liking oneself. So over the hour the breakdown was
roughly as follows:

drumming of child’s feet: 10 mins

vaguely spiritual observations: 4 mins

not-quite silence: 46 mins

And that was it, barring the announcements which followed
the end of the meeting proper.

Did it feel spiritual? Did it nurture my soul? No, not
really, although it did occur to me to wonder whether other religious groups
with more structured and dramatic worship formats are simply filling up an hour
with unnecessary noise. But I didn’t feel bored, didn’t wish I’d brought my
knitting, didn’t find myself thinking about work, so that period of silence at
least took me to a place of neutrality, even if I didn’t find communion. Nor, to my surprise, did I doze off, despite the incredible heat in the room and my not having slept well the night before.

Is it worship? For the Quakers, yes. As for myself, there’s
something lacking … the lyricism of liturgy, music, Bible readings and familiar
prayers. Maybe these are no more than window dressing, or maybe they’re just
different routes to the same end, but for me the silence isn’t quite enough.